Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning

Synopsis

Whether itOCOs brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaningOCofor taking thoughts in the mind of one human being, and summoning similar thoughts in the mind of another. This is an amazing ability, one that is both uniquely and universally human. Yet the science of meaning has lagged behind the other cognitive sciences. ThatOCOs because, as human behaviors go, meaning is comparatively hard to study scientifically. Meaning is internal, intimately personal, and almost entirely hidden. But methodological breakthroughs in the past decade have revolutionized the science of meaning. In "Louder Than Words," cognition expert Benjamin Bergen describes how cutting-edge techniques from experimental psychology and neuroscience have started to produce answers to the question of how we manage to convey meaning. Drawing from brain imaging research, behavioral experiments, and work with brain-damaged patients, Bergen proposes a new account of how meaning works. Namely, when we hear or read words and sentences, we engage parts of the brain that are used for perception and action to create internal, mental simulations of meaning. When you read that OC the gorilla has hairy kneecaps, OCO you canOCOt help but activate parts of your vision system that re-enact what it would be like to see the hairy kneecaps on a gorilla. When you read OC ThereOCOs no way you can touch your elbow to your ear, OCO you use parts of your motor system, which controls actions your body might perform, to run a mental simulation of what it would be like to try to touch your elbow you your ear. Simply put, the way we understand what other people are saying is by mentally recreating the scenes and events that we think theyOCOre describing. To the extent that our mental simulations match theirs (far from given ), we will succeed in understanding what they want to tell us. "Louder Than Words" will answer such questions as: OCo Why do people drive badly while talking on a cell phone? OCo How do we understand language about things weOCOve never seen before, like flying pigs or Jabberwockies? OCo Why do we move our hands and arms when we speak? And do those gestures help people understand us? OCo Why is it that computers can beat a grandmaster at chess but canOCOt process language as well as a five-year old? OCo Do people who speak different languages think differently? "Louder Than Words" is the first book to bring together linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience to tell the compelling new story of how meaning works. It is a rich account that will change how people read, write, speak, and listen.

Copyright:

2012

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

304 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780465033331

Related ISBNs:

9780465028290

Publisher:

Basic Books

Date of Addition:

05/28/21

Copyrighted By:

Benjamin K. Bergen

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Psychology

Grade Levels:

College Freshman

Reading Age:

13 and up

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.